


Simple Truth

by aseriousbunburyist



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Post Star Trek: Into Darkness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-14
Updated: 2013-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-20 03:22:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/882348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aseriousbunburyist/pseuds/aseriousbunburyist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day Jim wakes up, Bones is called in front of the ethics board.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Simple Truth

The day Jim wakes up, Bones is called in front of the ethics board.

He feels Spock watching him as he leaves Jim’s room. Jim is happy to demand Spock’s attention and Bones is glad Jim’s focus isn’t on him, because he woke up ten minutes ago and a conscious Jim is an observant Jim. Not that the hearing was broadcast publicly. Starfleet has been selective in the truths and half truths it’s feeding to the public. That’s not to say it’s exactly private information, either.

He’s silent when he changes out of his medical whites and into his official uniform; silent when they call him into the boardroom by his full title; and silent at the very end when they suspend his medical license. 

There had been a lone chair facing the panel of board members when he’d walked in, and he sat knowing that the next few hours of his life would be exhaustive and damning.

They ask him if he is aware of the strict stigma regarding genetic engineering and its practice. He is. Hell, every doctor in the Federation has had it spelled out for them in large print for the entirety of their careers. 

So it was impossible for Bones not to know the consequences of willfully manipulating genetic material with the intent of altering a person’s physiology. At the time, that fact had registered an importance of exactly 0%.

They ask him who else was involved, and he says no one.

They ask him if he obtained consent to use an unverified substance on one Captain James Kirk, from the subject or next of kin, and he doesn’t say he’s the closest thing Jim’s got to family.

They ask him what right he had to disobey a direct Starfleet regulation, ask what right he had callously delving into material that nearly plunged Earth into another Dark Age, ask what right he had to endanger not only the population of Earth, but of all Federation lives?

They ask him what right he had to play God, and Bones thinks,  _Every,_  because the simple truth is that there’s not a single thing in the goddamn universe that stacks up against Jim Kirk’s life.


End file.
